Quotations - Volume 7

There will eventually be 500 quotes in this volume. To find a quote by a specific author, or
that includes a particular word or phrase, use your browser's FIND function to
search for the quote you want.

Every effort has been made to attribute the source of each quotation properly.
Anyone finding an error or who knows the source for any quotation marked
"Unknown" or "Anonymous" please contact Fred O'Bryant.

Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home.  David Frost (1939-2013)

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.  Garrison Keillor (1942- )

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.  Mark Twain (1835-1910)

The trouble with using experience as a guide is that the final exam often comes first and then the lesson.  Unknown

Love is blind, and marriage is a real eye-opener.  Unknown

When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults.  Brian Aldiss (1925- )

Many Americans feel that they're under attack. Many blame all Muslims, but some won't blame Islam at all. Both are preposterous and dangerous positions.  David Harsanyi

Utter disregard for old-fashioned truth is now deeply embedded in contemporary America, largely because it advances a particular agenda. ... Subsequent fact-finding does not seem to dispel these untruths. Instead, what could or should have happened must have happened, given that the noble ends of social justice are thought to justify the means deemed necessary to achieve them.  Victor Davis Hanson (1953- ) in The Fiction of 'Truth'

Millennials seem seriously off-kilter, and we made them this way. A generation that has grown up in more affluence and personal freedom than any other in history has been taught to hate the free enterprise wealth-creation process that gave them what they want in the first place. A generation that has been drilled since pre-kindergarten that the highest virtue in life is tolerance has suddenly become the least tolerant in history.  Stephen Moore (1960- )

Musicians are some of the most driven, courageous people on the face of the earth. They deal with more day-to-day rejection in one year than most people do in a lifetime. Every day, they face the financial challenge of living a freelance lifestyle, the disrespect of people who think they should get real jobs, and their own fear that they'll never work again. Every day, they have to ignore the possibility that the vision they have dedicated their lives to is a pipe dream. With every note, they stretch themselves, emotionally and physically, risking criticism and judgment. With every passing year, many of them watch as the other people their age achieve the predictable milestones of normal lifethe car, the family, the house, the nest egg. Why? Because musicians are willing to give their entire lives to a momentto that melody, that lyric, that chord, or that interpretation that will stir the audience's soul. Musicians are beings who have tasted life's nectar in that crystal moment when they poured out their creative spirit and touched another's heart. In that instant, they were as close to magic, God, and perfection as anyone could ever be. And in their own hearts, they know that to dedicate oneself to that moment is worth a thousand lifetimes.  David Ackert (1968- )

The best theology is probably no theology; just love one another.  Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)

Americans are funny about taxes: When we complain about them, we don't moan that we are paying too muchwe lament that others are paying too little.  Kevin D. Williamson (1972- )

If we could look into each other's hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.  Marvin J. Ashton (1915-1994)

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.  Confucius (551-479 BC)

Nothing will work unless you do.  Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.  James M. Barrie (1860-1937)

One kind word can warm three winter months.  Japanese Proverb

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.  Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)

February is merely as long as is needed to pass the time until March.  J. R. Stockton

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.  Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993)

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.  Andy Rooney (1919-2011)

Every gift which is given, even though is be small, is in reality great, if it is given with affection.  Pindar (c.518-c.438 BC)

If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.  Bernard Williams (1929-2003)

A life without love is like a year without summer.  Swedish Proverb

It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.  Maud Hart Lovelace (1892-1980) in Betsy-Tacy and Tib

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.  Henry James (1843-1916)

God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away.  Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911)

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone.  Natalie Babbitt (1932- ) in Tuck Everlasting

Don't make old people mad. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.  Anonymous NY Grandmother

Don't tax me to death helping the less fortunate. Urge me to do good. And I will.  Anonymous NY Businessman

If only the sun-drenched celebrities are being noticed and worshiped, then our children are going to have a tough time seeing the value in the shadows, where the thinkers, probers and scientists are keeping society together.  Rita Dove (1952 - )

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.  Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion.  Simon Sinek (1973- )

You change for two reasons: Either you learn enough that you want to, or you've been hurt enough that you have to.  Unknown

Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.  Cyril Connolly (1903-1974)

People forget years and remember moments.  Ann Beattie (1947- )

You can't see red flags, if you are looking through rose-colored glasses.  Esther Onega (1960- )

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.  Robert Fulghum (1937- )

Let's fast forward and imagine an increasingly plausible future where Confederate memorials are piles of rubble, Confederate bones are interred in landfills, and Confederate flags linger on mainly as fading stickers on a few mud-covered pickup truckswill America be a better nation? Will a single inner-city school improve? Will we have taken a single meaningful step toward finding a way to responsibly end mass incarceration? Will community and police relations improve, at all? ... Of course not.  David French

Stupid people can cause problems, but it usually takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

Feelings trump common sense these days in America.  Lloyd Marcus

Wisdom has two parts: having a lot to say, and then not saying it.  Stephen Bentley in Herb and Jamaal Cartoon

Ah! What a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art, science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science, art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.  Raymond Thornton Chandler (1888-1959)

Never argue over anything factual. Argue over taste or opinionbut not about something that can be looked up.  William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925-2008)

Diversity might be better redefined in its most ancient and idealistic sense as differences in opinion and thought rather than just variety in appearance, race, gender, or religion.  Victor Davis Hanson (1953- )

Whenever possible... it's best to be hopeful for later and happy for now.  Francesco Marciuliano in Sally Forth Cartoon

One day, you 'll be just a memory for some people. Do your best to be a good one.  Unknown

Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes.  George Santayana (1863-1952)

Oh what we could be if we stopped carrying the remains of who we were.  Tyler Knott Gregson

Grief never ends but .... But it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith .... It is the price of love.  Unknown

The world is full of nice people; if you can't find one, be one.  Unknown

Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75.  Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.  Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Hate. It has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.  Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

There is nothing in this world that can trouble you more than your own thoughts.  Unknown

You should sit in nature for 20 minutes a day... Unless you are busy, then you should sit for an hour.  Zen Saying (Paraphrased)

Facing the truththat the world visits violence and poverty and discrimination upon people capriciously, with little regard for what they’ve done to deserve itis much scarier. Because, if there’s no good explanation for why any specific person is suffering, it’s far harder to escape the frightening conclusion that it could easily be you next.  Oliver Burkeman (1975- ) in The Guardian

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.  Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire (1802-1861)

There’s not going to be a switch that flips once you become an adult, and suddenly you start acting right. Every decision you make matters. Because once you’re older, you’re going to revert back to the same behavior you have right now. If you have a foundation of rudeness, dishonesty, and not caring, that’s what you’ll fall back on when you’re faced with a challenge. So we need to build a foundation of character.  Unnamed New Yorker

No two persons ever read the same book.  Edmund Wilson (1895-1972)

Nothing will stop you from being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.  John Cleese (1939- )

The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see.  Alexandra K. Trenfor

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.  Unknown

A married man can forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!  Unknown

Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.  Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you.  Annie Dillard (1945- )

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.  Jerry Seinfeld (1954- )

Make yourself happy without hurting others, then help others be happy without hurting yourself.  Edward Power in My Cage Cartoon

Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality.  Nicolas de Chamfort (1741-1794)

None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.  Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1683)

Make no judgments where you have no compassion.  Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011)

Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.  Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998)

Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.  Unknown

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.  James Madison (1751-1836)

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.  Giorgos Seferis (1900-1971)

Why are the women who make the worst mothers also the ones who are the most fertile?  Unknown

All of life is a foreign country.  Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given the test that teaches you a lesson.  Tom Bodett (1955- )

The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all.  Pablo Casals (1876-1973)

A student said to his master: "You teach me fighting, but you talk about peace. How do you reconcile the two?" The master replied: "It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war."  Unknown

Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.  Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

I will always remember 2015 as the year America was offended by absolutely everything.  Unknown

Respect is a two-way street. In decent societies the majority shows respect to the minority. But part of the bargain is that minorities also show respect to the majority.  Jonah Goldberg (1969- ) in The War on Christmas

Reality does not disappear because we don't see it. It just hits us like a ton of bricks when we least expect it.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.  E. M. Forster (1879-1970)

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.  Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.  Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

If serving is below you, then leadership is beyond you.  Jefferson Santos

Christianity and science are opposed... but only in the same sense as that which my thumb and forefinger are opposedand between them, I can grasp everything.  Sir William Henry Bragg (1862-1942), Physicist and Nobel Prize Laureate

Sometimes you can win more friends with your ears than with your mouth.  Stephen Bentley in Herb and Jamaal Cartoon

Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.  Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

The Conundrum of Meeting New People: You have to spend time with a person to get to know them well enough to know whether or not you want to spend time with them.  Rina Piccolo in "Tina's Groove" Cartoon

I used to look at my dog and think "If you were just a little smarter, you could tell me what you're thinking" and he'd look at me like he was saying "If you were just a little smarter, I wouldn't have to".  Fred Jungclaus

A dog wags its tail with its heart.  Unknown

In his grief over the loss of a dog, a little boy stands for the first time on tiptoe peering into the rueful morrow of manhood. After this most inconsolable of sorrows, there is nothing life can do to him that he will not be able to bear.  James Thurber (1894-1961)

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.  Mark Twain (1835-1910)

....you can see current events in their historical perspective, provided that your passion for the truth prevails over your bias in favor of your own nation.  Leo Szilard (1898-1964)

History should not be taught through a framework that first (or even materially) considers how a student or citizen feels about that history. Nor should it be taught through the closely related framework of dictating the teaching of [a] particular point of view. Rather, the teaching of history should acknowledgeas much as human beings canthe truth of the past in all its complexity. That complexity can be difficult and painful to process. Yet it can also be revealing and inspiring, with the same set of facts playing on human emotions and knowledge in distinct and often contradictory ways.  David French

Some people's idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.  Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are lovedloved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.  Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

[Because of its] own inherent tendencies, democracy tends to lower tastes and passions, to devolve into materialistic preoccupations, and to undercut its own principles by a morally indifferent relativism. Further, democracy left to itself tends to surrender liberty to the passion for security and equality, and thus to end in a new soft despotism, tied down with a thousand silken threads by a benign authority.  Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found.  Tzvetan Todorov (1939- )

No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. .... Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses. .... The peril of this nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope!  Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948)

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.  Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold.  John Leonard (1939-2008)

Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.  Gene Fowler (1890-1960)

Be happy with what you have while working for what you want.  Helen Keller (1880-1968)

No one heals himself by wounding another.  St. Ambrose [Aurelius Ambrosius] (337-397)

It is hard for loneliness to gaze on happiness.  Robin Hobb (1952- ) in Blood of Dragons

You must first get the ghetto mindset out of the people before you can truly take them out of the ghetto.  Lloyd Marcus

Turning from one's dreams is a greater death than failing to reach them. A far worse death... for one experiences it each day anew.  L. E. Modesitt, Jr. (1943- ) in Magi'i of Cyador

Just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist.  Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) in A Wrinkle in Time

Everyone has a compelling story. An autobiography is one of the greatest gifts you can leave. Everyone should write one.  Dennis Prager (1948- ) in "On the Death of My Father"

Our shouting is louder than our actions,
Our swords are taller than us,
This is our tragedy.
In short
We wear the cape of civilization
But our souls live in the stone age.  Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998)

Too many Americans believe in the possibility of a free lunch. Politicians exploit that gullibility. The unpleasant task of a good economist is to teach that fundamental principle: One cannot get something for nothing.  Walter E. Williams (1936- )

Understanding a person does not mean condoning; it only means that one does not accuse him as if one were God or a judge placed above him.  Erich Fromm (1900-1980)

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.  Sarah Ban Breathnach (1947- )

Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities when directing one's course by it, one must still try to follow its direction.  Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

With all the heated and bitter debates between those who believe in heredity and those who believe in environment as explanations of group differences in outcomes, both seem to ignore the possibility that some groups just do not want to do the same things as other groups. ... Groups differ from other groups all over the world, for all sorts of reasons, ranging from geography to demography, history and culture. There is not much we can do about geography and nothing we can do about the past. But we can stop looking for villains every time we see differences.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

If dogs don't go to heaven, I want to go where they go.  Quoted by Burt Prelutsky (1940- )

Everywhere is within walking distance, if you have the time.  Steven Wright (1955- )

Authoritarians insist upon being obeyed but otherwise leave people alone; totalitarians not only require obedience but also demand that people think the way they think.  Richard Winchester paraphrasing Tom Nichols (1960- )

Remember always that the primary blame for any criminal or wrongful act lies with the perpetrator and his or her confederates. It is extraordinary to see the extent to which ideologues will fixate on any given crime (or suspected crime) and immediately blame it on entire segments of American society, thus taking an individual crime and turning it into a group indictment.  David French (1969- )

You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner? The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.  Unknown

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.  Erich Fromm (1900-1980)

Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.  Ben Okri (1959- )

The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.  Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

The best fighter is never angry.  Lao Tzu (604-531 BC)

Nature's laws affirm instead of prohibit. If you violate her laws, you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman.  Luther Burbank (1849-1926)

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destinyit is the light that guides your way.  Heraclitus (535-475 BC)

Two things only a man cannot hide, that he is drunk and that he is in love.  Antiphanes (c.408-334 BC)

No one loves the warrior until the enemy is at the gate.  Stephen A. Janke in Poems from a Soldier: Vietnam 1970-71

Joy is the best makeup.  Anne Lamott (1954- )

The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.  William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

The tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do.  James, 3:5

Every time I get my car washed, there are birds who see it and say "How nice! They've cleaned the toilet!"  Unknown, quoted by Paul Richards

Being respectful and accepting loss when your team doesn't winessential for the functioning of any electoral representative democracy and a fundamental lesson every child used to learn through playing competitive sportshas been destroyed by the left and appears no longer relevant for many in today's millennial generation. ... ...the virtues of the American story and its animating ideas... have always been workable because they revolve around freedom that ties rights to responsibilities, the creative power of free markets and the benefits of a Constitution that mitigates government abuse through separation of powers while also ensuring stability through the rule of law.  Scott S. Powell (1965- )

No one heals himself by wounding another.  St. Ambrose [Aurelius Ambrosius] (c.340-397)

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes timelike to have a friend takes time.  Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)

All problems have histories, and the wisest route to a successful solution to nearly any problem begins with understanding its history.  David McCullough (1933- )

Music... furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us through life.  Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.  Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

He who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.  St Basil of Caesarea (330-379)

It pleases me to take amateur photographs of my garden, and it pleases my garden to make my photographs look professional.  Robert Brault

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.  Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900)

There is a beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All literate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan and the musician.  Glenn T. Seaborg (1912-1999)

More and more Americans today are becoming Stoic dropouts. They are not illiberal, and certainly not reactionaries, racists, xenophobes, or homophobes. They're simply exhausted by our frenzied culture. They don't like lectures from the privileged and the wealthy on the pitfalls of privilege and wealth. In response, they don't hike out to monasteries, fall into fetal positions, or write Meditations. Instead, they have checked out mentally from American popular entertainment, sports, and the progressive cultural project in general.  Victor Davis Hanson (1953- ) in "Monasteries of the Mind"

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?  Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Be decisive. Right or wrong, make a decision. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn't make a decision.  Unknown

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.  Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

When administrators look upon students simply as paying customers who must be kept happy, they lose sight of the very point of higher education, where struggling for knowledge and self-improvement is a complex undertaking. Losing enrolled students from time to time is the price of keeping academic standards high. That loss includes the possibility that some might leave because they feel "unsafe" with controversial ideas swirling around... Educational leaders must explain to students that civilization depends on freedom of speech. We need everyone's willingness to listen to and rationally respond to different views. Leaders must take every opportunity to reinforce the message that thinking based on evidence and controversy is the normal currency of academic training. Shouting down speakers is not.  Antony Dnes in "We Must Reverse the Infantilization of Higher Education"

Government can force people to be equal, or it can allow people to be free. Government cannot do both.  Paul Dueweke

As we learned from the Mohammed cartoon controversy some years back, people who demand your respect are often really asking for your obedience to their control. ....they have learned to use their grievances to justify claims of absolute moral truth, in order to impose totalitarian control on the world around them....  Mario Loyola in "Training Tyrants at Yale"

Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.  Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.  Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)

Our shouting is louder than our actions, / Our swords are taller than us, / This is our tragedy. / In short / We wear the cape of civilization / But our souls live in the stone age.  Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998)

There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.  Anne Frank (1929-1945)

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned. These are the things you already know: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.  Robert Fulghum (1937- )

The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.  Cornel West (1953- )

I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it.  Alanis Morissette (1974- )

Being a gentleman is not a part-time job.  Tory Burch (1966- )

The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.  Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our livesthe good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejectionsthat requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.  Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)

You know what makes me sick to my stomach? When I hear grown people say that kids have changed. Kids haven't changed. Kids don't know anything about anything. We've changed as adults. We demand less of kids. We expect less of kids. We make their lives easier instead of preparing them for what life is truly about. We're the ones that have changed. To blame kids is a cop out.  Frank Martin (1966- )

By the time you understand grownups, you're one of them.  "Dennis the Menace" Cartoon

Patience is also a form of action.  Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

It is hard enough to prove something that happened; how do you disprove something that did not happen?  Robert Oscar Lopez (1971- )

Never make a woman mad. They can remember stuff that hasn't even happened yet.  Unknown

From now on any successful life must include serving others.  George H. W. Bush (1924- )

The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.  Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

Every critic today should beware of presentism: judging people from 50, 100, or 500 years ago base on 2017's fragile sensitivities. Put another way, come 2217, some things taken for granted now will make savages of today's sophisticates.  Deroy Murdock (1963- )

History is not offensive. It is history. History is not a tool of oppression. It is history. It is the record of what was. It remembers what was best about usas well as what was worst. People who seek to erase our cultural memories make war on us as surely as any terrorist does.  E. M. Cadwaladr

History has many dramatic examples of the rise and fall of peoples and nations, for a wide range of known and unknown reasons. What history does not have is what is so often assumed as a norm today, equality of group achievements at a given point in time. ..... Yet today we have bean counters in Washington turning out statistics that are solemnly presented in courts of law to claim that, if the numbers are not more or less the same for everybody, that proves that somebody did somebody else wrong.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.  Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.  George H. Lorimer (1867-1937)

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.  Gore Vidal (1925-2012)

When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always.  Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be, because goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring.  Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868-1956)

The trouble with being punctual is that there is nobody there to appreciate it.  Unknown

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.  Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)

If he does not fight, it is not because he rejects all fighting as futile, but because he has finished his fights. He has overcome all dissensions between himself and the world and is now at rest... We shall have wars and soldiers so long as the brute in us is untamed.  Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975)

Every time you clean something, you just make something else dirty.  Internet Humor

Your future self is watching you right now through memories.  Internet Humor

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss, at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.  Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

If thine enemy wrong thee, buy each of his children a drum.  African Proverb

For a long time we have gone along with some well-tested principles of conduct: that it was better to tell the truth than falsehoods; that a half-truth was no truth at all; that duties were older than and as fundamental as rights; that, as Justice Holmes put it, the mode by which the inevitable came to pass was effort; that to perpetuate a harm was always wrong, no matter how many joined in it, but to perpetuate it on a weaker person was particularly detestable ... Our institutions are founded on the assumption that most people will follow these principles most of the time because they want to, and the institutions work pretty well when this assumption is true.  Dean Acheson (1893-1971)

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.  Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

It seems that never have so many known so little about so much.  Brad Lena

People are always yapping about diversitythey mean diversity in skin color and ancestry. They don't give a rat's behind about diversity of thought or diversity of opinion, which is just weird in my opinion.  Jay Nordlinger (1963- )

Gardens will be the peaceful haven we all need.  Paul Tukey (1961- )

No matter how many mistakes you have made, how slow the progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying!  Unknown

Kind words are the music of the world.  Unknown

Always laugh when you can. It is cheaper than medicine.  George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

If you long for a mind at rest and a heart that cannot harden, go find a gate that opens wide into a secret garden.  Unknown

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.  Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

We're all so desperate to be understood, we forget to be understanding.  Unknown

Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.  John Erskine (1879-1951)

Decency is possible only in a society that has not been corrupted so deeply that the truth no longer matters.  James Lewis (1953- )

Politicians tend to think in short-run terms, if only because elections are held in the short run. Therefore, there is always a temptation to do reckless and short-sighted things to get over some current problem, even if that creates far worse problems in the long run.  Thomas Sowell (1930- ) in "Cyprus: Can It Happen Here?"

All mushrooms are edible, but some only once in a lifetime.  Croatian Proverb

Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.  Ben Okri (1959- )

During the day, you can count on finding three kinds of people in a parka park anywhere in the world, I mean: children (with their minders); the elderly; and vagrants.  Jay Nordlinger (1963- )

Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, "Is life a multiple choice test or is it a true or false test?" Then a voice comes to me out of the dark and says, "We hate to tell you this but life is a thousand word essay."  Charles M. Schultz (1922-2000) in Peanuts

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.  Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

There's no such thing as being too Southern.  Louis Grizzard (1946-1994)

But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)

For the beauty of the rose we also water the thorns.  African Proverb

Schaeffer's First Law of the Digital Age: The Global Digital Infrastructure (GDI) connects all human life on the planet into a single, giant, metastasizing organism throbbing with incredible potential for advancing human good, expanding knowledge exponentially, invading our lives with unimaginable malice and evil, and transforming unsuspecting users into helpless and obedient cyborgs.  Pem Schaeffer

Schaeffer's Second Law of the Digital Age: Each breakthrough in utility deriving from advances in the Global Digital Domain is accompanied by equal or greater vulnerabilities and potential detriments to quality of life. Anything that can do amazingly great things for you can almost always do terribly awful things to you as well.  Pem Schaeffer

Schaeffer's Third Law of the Digital Age: It's impossible to make or enforce laws to guard the people against the dangers of global digital power and impossible to prevent exponential growth in this power. (Abridged)  Pem Schaeffer

Half the harm that is done in the world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harmbut the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.  T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Our educational system may not teach students much math or science, but students learn from gutless academic administrators that mob rule is the way to get what you wantand to silence those who disagree with you.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

Historians of the future, when they look back on our times, may be completely baffled when trying to understand how Western civilization welcomed vast numbers of people hostile to the fundamental values of Western civilization, people who had been taught that they have a right to kill those who do not share their beliefs.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.  Laurens van der Post (1906-1996)

Some people have told me that I compose in a musical language of the past and that this is not allowed in the 21st century. In the past, it was possible to compose beautiful melodies and beautiful music, but today, they say, I'm not allowed to compose like this because I need to discover the complexity of the modern world, and the point of music is to show the complexity of the world. Well, let me tell you a huge secret: I already know that the world is complex and can be very ugly. But I think that these people have just got a little bit confused! If the world is so ugly, then what's the point of making it even uglier with ugly music?  Alma Deutscher (2005- )

The older you get, the more you realize that principle plays just a small role in politics. Ethics are strictly situational. They depend on what jersey you're wearing. They depend on which way the wind is blowing.  Jay Nordlinger (1963- )

The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It is focused attention.  Unknown

Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been taught was how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.  Ryan Fournier

The general malaise that has beset the U.S., like a thick gray fog of discontent, has robbed the country of a robust defense of civic duty. The average American, it seems, is too distracted or burned out to take interest in the larger challenge of defining the public good. So it's been left to the crazies, whose combined lack of volume control and employment make them perfect activists.  Taylor Lewis

The First Amendment takes for granted a nation that implicitly supports it. Laws don't matter when the larger society ignores them. As Scott Alexander writes, "Having free speech laws on the books is a necessary precondition, but it's useless in the absence of social norms that support it."  Taylor Lewis

History is a great teacher when you listen. Sadly, liberals are more attuned to their gut feelings than the struggles of their forebearers.  Taylor Lewis

Colleges and even high schools and elementary schools incessantly indoctrinate the kids with politically correct ideology at the core of which is: identity. You're either a victim (female, non-white, non-hetero) or you're an oppressor. If you're the former, feel aggrieved (that's an order!) and "entitled" to compensation and preference; if you're the latter, you're guiltyand obliged to feel that way.  Jay Nordlinger (1963- ), quoting an unnamed college professor

A woman accusing a man of sexual harassment is like dropping a nuclear bomb on his head. It is impossible for a man to defend himself without a majority thinking he is guilty.  Lloyd Marcus

Music: incredibly easy to understand on a basic level, but profoundly difficult to speak with any fluency.  Ron Wasserman (1961- )

Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.  Umberto Eco (1932-2016)

A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.  Billy Graham (1918-2018)

Life is like a flute. It may have many holes and emptiness. But if you work on it carefully, it can play magical melodies.  Unknown

Trees are a poem the earth writes across the sky. Humanity cuts them down for paper so we may record our emptiness.  Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

If you understand everything, you must be misinformed.  Japanese Proverb

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.  Margaret Atwood (1939- )

Understanding a person does not mean condoning; it only means that one does not accuse him as if one were God or a judge placed above him.  Erich Fromm (1900-1980)

God has given us two hands, one to receive and the other to give with.  Billy Graham (1918-2018)

It's best to give while your hand is still warm.  Philip Roth (1933- )

Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.  Gene Fowler (1890-1960)

True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.  Louis Nizer (1902-1994)

Men are divided in opinion as to the facts. And even granting the facts, they explain them in different ways.  Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838-1926)

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.  Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.  Francoise Sagan (1935-2004)

Love, however, is very materially assisted by a warm and active imagination: which has a long memory, and will thrive, for a considerable time, on very slight and sparing food.  Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. I think the sooner we renounce the sanctity of these many identities and try to identify ourselves with the human race the sooner we will get a better world and a safer world.  Mohamed ElBaradei (1942- )

The longest day must have its closethe gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day.  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.  William Styron (1925-2006)

If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.  E. O. Wilson (1929- )

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.  John Wesley (1703-1791)

There is nothing more dangerous than a government of the many controlled by the few.  Lawrence Lessig (1961- )

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.  Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there's more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.  Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

What if dogs destroy shoes because we always put them on before leaving?  Unknown

He looks as though he's been weaned on a pickle.  Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)

To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.  Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)

I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.  Robin Williams (1951-2014)

Life has a way of bringing you the same test over and over again until you pass it.  Unknown

I can be thankful that I have what I need, and for the realization that I don't need the things that I don't have.  Paul Richards (1938- )

Our imagination is meant for bigger things than fear. This week, try to replace worry with wonder.  Unknown

When you focus on problems, you get more problems. When you focus on possibilities, you have more opportunities.  Unknown

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.  Leo Rosten (1908-1997)

I wasn't born pessimistic. I'm a convert.  Edward Power in My Cage Comic Strip

Please don't speak unless you can improve on the silence.  Jenny Campbell in Flo and Friends Cartoon Strip

What is the difference between "I like you" and "I love you"? When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily. One who understands this, understands life.  The Buddha

There may be moments in friendship, as in love, when silence is beyond words. The faults of our friend may be clear to us, but it is well to seem to shut our eyes to them. Friendship is usually treated by the majority of mankind as a tough and everlasting thing which will survive all manner of bad treatment. But this is an exceedingly great and foolish error; it may die in an hour of a single unwise word; its conditions of existence are that it should be dealt with delicately and tenderly, being as it is a sensitive plant and not a roadside thistle. We must not expect our friend to be above humanity.  Ouida [Maria Louise Ramé] (1839-1908)

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities, but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.  John Brunner (1934-1995)

I asked for strength... and God gave me difficulties to make me strong. I asked for wisdom... and God gave me problems to solve. I asked for prosperity... and God gave me brain and brawn to work. I asked for courage... and God gave me danger to overcome. I asked for love... and God gave me troubled people to help. I asked for favors... and God gave me opportunities. I received nothing I wanted... I received everything I needed.  Jane Taylor

Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of a pure heart.  Jose N. Harris

Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.  Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

I've often wondered why God gave me no talent, didn't make me overly bright, didn't make me strong and handsome. I've felt short-changed and cheated. Then I realize that he brought me this far for some unknown reason. I'm still baffled, but ever so thankful for the blessings that he HAS given me. Lord help me to somehow understand, and to know and do your will. I'm thankful to know friends such as you.  Johnny Sowell

The world is getting too sensitive. Soon I won't be able to make fun of myself without people getting offended.  Unknown

Why bother? Because right now, there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words.  Sean Thomas Dougherty (1965- )

I have no respect for people who deliberately try to be weird to attract attention, but if that's who you honestly are, you shouldn't try to "normalize" yourself.  Alicia Witt (1975- )

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.  Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)

Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.  James Randi (1928- )

The endlessly repeated argument that most Americans are the descendants of immigrants ignores the fact that most Americans are NOT the descendants of ILLEGAL immigrants.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.  James Baldwin (1924-1987)

Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the street and then getting hit by an airplane.  Unknown

Question: if you mixed vodka with orange juice and milk of magnesia, would you get a phillips screwdriver?  Unknown

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.  Haile Selassie (1892-1975)

If life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs.  John Clare (1793-1864)

People talk about things. Those with great minds talk about abstracts: ideas, concepts, theories, etc. Those with small minds talk about other people.  Paul Richards (1938- )

The arrogance of the agemaybe every ageis that intellectuals believe, by default, that they're smarter, more moral and more evolved than those who came before them.  David Harsanyi

Silence may often be misinterpreted, but it's never misquoted.  Unknown

That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse.  Bill Watterson in Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon Strip

Imagine you are paddling a canoe downstream. From God's point of view above, he sees the bend in the stream you've already passed. He sees you now, paddling slowly next to the pines on the bank. He sees beyond the bend ahead, where a deer is lapping the tumbling water. You can no longer see what you've passed, nor do you know of the deer just ahead. The stream is time, and while we can only see where we are now, time stretches out in a continuum, one long stream of what has been, what is, and what will be in simultaneous existence.  Susan D. Harris

At least half of our society's troubles come from know-it-alls, in a world where nobody knows even 10 percent of it all.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.  Adam Smith (1723-1790)

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood.  Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) in Brave New World Revisited

The dangerous man is the one who has only one idea, because then he'll fight and die for it.  Francis Crick (1916-2004)

Knowledge is knowing what to say. Wisdom is knowing whether or not to say it.  Unknown

I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.  William H. Seward (1801-1872)

A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes there is no virtue but on his own side.  Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

Leave something in the world for which the world will be grateful long after you have left it.  Thomas Centolella (1952- )

Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.  Sidney Hook

Make sure that your lips do not speak any words that your heart does not know are true.  Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (1809-1883)

It helps if you imagine autocorrect as a tiny little elf in your phone who's trying so hard to be helpful but is in fact quite drunk.  Michael Marshall Smith (1965- )

In the affluent West, we live in a world where there is less and less need therefore and more and more desire.  René Girard (1923-2015)

Happiness is not something that we should plan to experience at some future point. Rather, it is something that we should cultivate or appreciate now.  Unknown

Fear is only temporary. Regrets last forever.  Unknown

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's.  Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Love is like war... easy to start, difficult to finish and impossible to forget.  Jan Jansen (1962- )

Forgive anyone who has caused you pain or harm. Keep in mind that forgiving is not for others. Forgiving is not forgetting. It is remembering without anger. It frees up your power, heals your body, mind and spirit. Forgiveness opens up a pathway to a new place of peace where you can persist despite what has happened to you.  Leslie Calvin "Les" Brown (1945- )

No person who can read is ever successful at cleaning out an attic.  Ann Landers (1918-2002)

The American Dream means giving it your all, trying your hardest, accomplishing something. And then I'd add to that, giving something back. No definition of a successful life can do anything but include serving others.  George Herbert Walker Bush (1924-2018)

Most personal changes are not instantaneous or immediate. They all require practice and commitment.  Joseph R. Folkman

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.  Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

When I die, don't come to my grave to tell me how much you love me and miss me, because those words I want to hear while I'm still alive.  Unknown

The best theology is probably no theology; just love one another.  Charles Schulz (1922-2000)

You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into.  Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

There no longer is an "American people"; there are peoples living in America.  Selwyn Duke

Be as Happy as you can, but only as sad as you have to be.  Paul Richards (1938- )

You can shed tears because they are gone, or you can smile because they lived. You can close your eyes and pray they will come back, or you can open your eyes and see all that they left for you. Your heart can be empty because you can't see them, or you can be full of the love you shared. You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday, or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday. You can remember only that they are gone, or you can cherish their memory and let it live on. You can cry and close your mind and feel empty, or you can do what they would want. Smile, Open your heart, Love... and go on.  Elizabeth Ammons (1943- )

Be thankful for what you have. Your life, no matter how bad you think it is, is someone else's fairy tale.  Olawale "Wale" Ayeni

Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.  Elinor Glyn (1864-1943)

In youth we learn. In age we understand.  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916)

He who, when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth, tells it boldly and has done is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice and never ceases nibbling.  Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801)

Patience is also a form of action.  Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

I am realizing that I talk a lot about the past. Perhaps that's because there is quite a bit of it, I don't know about the future, and many of the current events leave me speechless.  Paul Richards (1938- )

Sometimes I feel like I've done all that I can do. Then it might be time to walk away and let God do it! Not everything is meant for you to handle. Trust God.  Charles Schulz (1922-2000)

You can't skip chapters, that's not how life works. You have to read every line, meet every character. You won't enjoy all of it. Hell, some chapters will make you cry for weeks. You will read things you don't want to read, you will have moments when you don't want the pages to end. But you have to keep going. Stories keep the world revolving. Live yours, don't miss out.  Courtney Peppernell

Forgive yourself first. Release the need to replay a negative situation over and over again in your mind. Don't become a hostage to your past by always reviewing and reliving your mistakes. Don't remind yourself of what should have, could have, or would have been. Release it and let it go. Move on.  Leslie Calvin "Les" Brown (1945- )

Your peace is more important than driving yourself crazy trying to understand why something happened the way it did.  Mandy Hale

If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life but still the same amount of snow.  Unknown

To make someone happy, just give them these three things: Attention, Affection and Appreciation.  Unknown

We're all so desperate to be understood, we forget to be understanding.  Beau Taplin

Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859)

If you embrace struggle and are willing to learn what it shows you, you may not ever get what it is you are struggling forbut you can become a better person for what you will not get.  James Tobin

Happiness never decreases by being shared.  The Buddha

Reading gives us a place to go when we have to stay where we are.  Mason Cooley (1927-2002)

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why.  Uncertain; Erroneously attrib. Mark Twain and many others

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.  Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.  Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

God is not some cosmic kill-joy. Every time He says, "Thou shalt not," He's simply saying, "Don't hurt yourself." And every time He says, "Thou shalt," He's saying, "Help yourself to happiness."  Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)

When you're in a dark place, you sometimes tend to think you've been buried. Perhaps you've been planted.  Unknown

With the rise of self driving vehicles, it's only a matter of time before there's a Country song where the guy's truck leaves him.  Unknown

When it's all over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.  Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

Relationships never end, because they're of the mind; only bodies can separate. When you're missing someone, know it just means that on a soul level they've come to visit.  Marianne Williamson (1952- )

Relationships are laboratories of the spirit. They are hospitals of the soul. They are the places where the wounds that we hold will be brought up because that's the only way they can be healed.  Marianne Williamson (1952- )

Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.  Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

Remember when people had diaries and got mad when someone read them? Now they put everything online and get mad when people don't!  Unknown

We worry more about the purity of dogma than about the integrity of love.  Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

Before you say something, think how you'd feel if someone said it to you.  Unknown

When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.  Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658)

We have come to live in a society based on insults, on lies and on things that just aren't true. It creates an environment where deranged people feel empowered.  Colin Powell (1937- )

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading a newspaper is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand on a clock.  Ben Hecht (1894-1964)

Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.  Thomas Sowell (1930- )

The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they make the best of everything.  Unknown

A saint was asked, "What is anger?" He gave a beautiful answer, "It is a punishment we give to ourself for somebody else's mistake."  Unknown

Grief never ends, but it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith. It is the price of love.  Unknown

When the student is ready, the teacher appears. When the student is truly ready, the teacher disappears.  Lao Tzu (b.601 BC)

I don't want to be a great leader; I want to be a man who goes around with a little oil can and when he sees a breakdown, offers his help. To me, the man who does that is greater than any holy man in saffron-colored robes. The mechanic with the oilcan: that is my ideal in life.  Baba Amte (1914-2008)

Be careful what you wish for. You might become famous for something you don't want to be famous for.  Ray Billingsley in Curtis Cartoon

I remind myself every morning that nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So, if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.  Larry King (1933- )

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.  Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

If you want to make everyone happy, don't be a leader. Sell ice cream.  Eric Geiger

With some people I always seem to be able to get finished listening well before they finish talking.  Paul Richards

Easy to spot a yellow car when you are always thinking of a yellow car. Easy to spot opportunity when you are always thinking of opportunity. Easy to spot reasons to be mad when you are always thinking of being mad. You become what you constantly think about. Watch yourself.  CryptoSeneca on Twitter

If you cannot be positive, then at least be quiet.  Joel Osteen (1963- )

A good friend finds you in the dark and carries you back to the light.  Darlene Schacht (1965- )

When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.  Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)

Today I gave you an hour. A year ago I would've given you an eternity.  Rachel Van Dyken

It is good to rub and polish your mind against that of others.  Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.  Unknown

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.  Unknown

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.  Unknown

If you can't pay your bills, be thankful you aren't your creditors.  Stephen Bentley in Herb and Jamaal Cartoon

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.  Samuel Lover (1797-1868)

There is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some diehard's vote.  David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance.  Ansel Adams (1902-1984)

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.  George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)

Indecision is the theft of opportunity.  Jim Rohn [Emanuel James Rohn] (1930-2009)

A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it.  Lewis H. Lapham (1935- )

The news used to tell you that something happened, then you had to decide what you thought about it. Now the news tells you how to think about something, and you have to decide if it even happened.  Ryan Fournier (1995- )

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.  Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.  Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.  George R. R. Martin (1948- )

Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.  Jamie Anderson (1990- )

Two well developed worries about money have been detected and "isolated" by the scientific financiers of the present day  worry about the money you have and worry about not having money.  Charlottesville, VA, Daily Progress Editorial, July 25, 1925

A whole stack of memories will never equal one little hope.  Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000) in Peanuts cartoon

Some people survive and talk about it. Some people survive and go silent. Some people survive and create. Everyone deals with unimaginable pain in their own way, and everyone is entitled to that, without judgment. So the next time you look at someone's life covetously, remember... you may not want to endure what they are enduring right now, at this moment, whilst they sit so quietly before you, looking like a calm ocean on a sunny day. Remember how vast the ocean's boundaries are. Whilst somewhere the water is calm, in another place in the very same ocean, there is a colossal storm.  Nikita Gill

In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics". All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.  George Orwell (1903-1950)

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.  William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

You don't make music with instruments. You make music with emotions. The instruments just allow you to get your point across.  Unknown

If your presence hasn't made an impact, then your absence won't make a difference.  Stephen Bentley (1954- ) in Herb and Jamaal cartoon

I feel fairly certain that my hatred harms me more than the people whom I hate.  Max Frisch (1911-1991)

People think God is up there, but there's no separation between you and God. God is always working through your soul, through the way you express yourself to others.  Wally Richardson (1924- )

Praying... isn't a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.  Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

If Plan A doesn't work, there are 25 other letters in the alphabet.  Wally Richardson (1924- )

The man who has many answers is often found in the theaters of information where he offers, graciously, his deep findings. While the man who has only questions, to comfort himself, makes music.  Mary Oliver (1925-2019)

New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.  Lao Tzu

Life is a long lesson in humility.  James M. Barrie (1860-1937)

Prayer is not a transaction that somehow pleases God but a transformation of the consciousness of the one doing the praying. Prayer is allowing God to change our mind about the reality right in front of us (which we usually avoid or distort). Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. Being fully present to the soul of all things will allow you to say, “This is good. This is enough. In fact, this is all I need.”  Richard Rohr (1943- )

News travels fast... bad news faster!  Dennis the Menace cartoon

Repeating the same lie over and over again convinces no one except the person who's telling it.  Stephen Bentley in Herb and Jamaal cartoon

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.  Linus Pauling (1901-1994)

A saint was asked "What is anger?" He gave a beautiful answer: "It is a punishment we give to ourself, for somebody else's mistake."  Unknown

It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love. It matters only that you love.  John Lennon (1940-1980)

It's what non-car people don't get. They see all cars as just ton-and-a-half, two tonnes of wires, glass, metal, rubber. That's all they see. People like you and I know, we have an unshakable belief that cars are living entities. You can develop a relationship with your car. And that's what non-car people don't get.  Jeremy Clarkson (1960- )

The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.  Albert Einstein (1879-1955)